Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Congress coined 'Hindu terror' to woo Muslims, BJP says

NEW DELHI: Recent
developments in 'Hindutva terror' cases, where key prosecution witnesses
recanted and investigators claimed that inquiries were manipulated, has seen
BJP launch a concerted attack on Congress, accusing it of concocting 'Hindu
terrorism' to play minority politics.

The account of US citizen David Headley, a Lashkar operative
convicted in the 26/11 case, the change of stance of a key witness in the
Malegaon blasts case and fresh revelations about alleged manipulation of the
Ishrat Jahan case to obscure the Mumbra teen's terror links have seen BJP
virtually accuse Congress of creating a Hindu terror bogey to court the
minority vote.

"Use of such phrases by top Congress members even when
investigations were not complete and there was no report or a court's verdict
raises a big question about their intentions, makes it appear that this was not
the natural outcome of investigation. It was a deliberate attempt to play vote
bank politics and a case of political prejudice," BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi
told the media on Friday.

Trivedi alleged that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi
had first expressed the view that saffron extremism was a greater threat to
India - an allusion to a Wikileaks cable that came to light in 2010 about Rahul's
interaction with the US ambassador. The BJP spokesperson also referred to
former home minister Sushil Shinde's remarks about "Hindu terrorism",
comments denied by the Congress member.

Home minister P Chidambaram had overseen a cynical change in
the Centre's affidavit on the case relating to Ishrat and three others who were
part of a Lashkar module, Trivedi said.

Trivedi's salvo followed commerce minister Nirmala
Sitharaman's comments directly accusing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul
of backing a plan to implicate Narendra Modi in a fake encounter case even if
it meant ignoring a terror plot intended to eliminate the then Gujarat chief
minister.

The hard hitting statements are intended to turn the tables
on Congress by using leaks and RTI revelations as BJP members feel UPA era
cases were intended to embarrass the saffron party. By suggesting Congress had
acted in an "anti-Hindu" manner to serve its political ends, BJP
leaders are looking to put the main opposition on the defensive.

After the Headley testimony and the NIA report, the twists
in the Malegaon case where a Hindutva group was named as accused has come handy
for BJP which has pointed to comments of retired Maharashtra ATS officials who
said original leads pointing to the involvement of SIMI and Pakistan-trained
persons were overturned.